Not applicable.
Not applicable.
The present invention relates generally to furniture components, and more particularly to a seating assembly for a chair, sofa or the like, wherein the assembly includes a plurality of preloaded spring coils for providing resilient support of an individual sitting on the furniture.
It is conventional to provide a coil seating assembly for a chair, love seat or sofa, wherein the seating assembly includes a plurality of spring coils that are bound together and secured to a base, e.g. by an 8-way hand tie arrangement or the like. Typically, the spring coils are slightly compressed or preloaded when tied down to the base or frame to increase the support provided by the assembly.
Although the known seat assembly construction performs in a satisfactory manner, it would be desirable to reduce the cost and complexity of the assembly, and to provide a construction that possesses all the advantages of the conventional construction while adding further benefits. For example, because the known construction requires a time-consuming hand-tying operation requiring skilled craftsmanship to install, it would be desirable to provide a comparable construction that could be employed with less labor or skill. Such a construction would reduce the cost of the assembly, and of the piece of furniture into which the assembly is installed.
In addition, because the coils of a conventional seating assembly are preloaded during construction by tying the assembly down to the base, the base is also loaded, increasing the total load experienced by the base. As such, the base must be designed to bear the added load exerted by the coils, increasing the cost of the furniture being manufactured.
The present invention generally relates to a coil seating assembly for use in a piece of furniture, and broadly includes a plurality of spring coils that are preloaded by a fabric casing defined by a plurality of individual pockets within which the coils are received. The spring coils each define a central longitudinal axis and are deformable in the direction of the axis between an extended, unloaded condition and a compressed, loaded condition. The pocket encasing each spring coil defines an interior space sized for receipt of one of the coils only when the coil is deformed from the unloaded condition. As such, the pockets restrict extension of the coils from the compressed, loaded condition such that the coils are maintained in the loaded condition within the pockets.
By providing a seating assembly in accordance with the present invention, numerous advantages are realized. For example, by providing an assembly in which every spring coil is preloaded within a pocket of the casing, it is possible to provide an assembly having the desired support characteristics without also preloading the base or frame of the furniture as well. As such, the frame need not be constructed to support both the preload and live load to be experienced by the furniture. In addition, by providing the assembly as a modular unit in which the preloaded condition of the coils is maintained apart from the remainder of the piece of furniture being manufactured, installation of the unit into the furniture is simplified, and relatively complex hand tying operations are not required. This significantly reduces the cost of manufacture of the furniture, as well as the level and amount of skilled craftsmanship required.